“ – the dangerous words, the padlocked words, the words that do not belong to the dictionary,
for if they were written there, written out and not maintained by ellipses,
they would utter too fast the suffocating misery of a solitude …”
Jean Genet
Introduction to “Soledad Brother – The Prison Letters of George Jackson”
I wrote a post about the history of the movement "Rock Against Racism" but as we lurch from bad to worse in a post-Brexit, Donald Trump world, I'm now going to post a video playlist of specific anti-Fascist or anti-Nazi songs. The songs don't really require any smart-arse comments from me but can stand alone and speak for themselves.
1) Leadbelly "Mr Hitler"
2) Woody Guthrie - "All You Fascists Bound To Lose"
3) Linton Kwesi Johnson - "Fight Dem Back"
4) Tom Robinson - "Power In The Darkness"
5) Gang Of Four - "Outside The Trains Don't Run On Time"
6) Crass - "The Gasman Cometh"
7) Steel Pulse - "Ku Klux Klan"
8) Dead Kennedys - "Nazi Punks Fuck Off"
9) Men They Couldn't Hang - "Ghosts Off Cable Street"
10) The Specials - "Why?"
11) Fire Engines - "We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thang"
12/13) Minutemen - "Political Song For M.Jackson To Sing" / "Fascist"
14) The Fall - "Who Makes The Nazis?"
15) Propaghandi - "The Only Good Fascist Is A Dead Fascist"
1) De La Soul - "Me, Myself & I"
When I was at university, there was this party where some young kid was going round anyone who'd listen brandishing this cassette tape (Yes I'm that old) in which he claimed he'd recorded a song that de La Soul had ripped off to become "Me, Myself & I" and a huge hit. No one would give him the time of day and of course there's no proving the provenance or the timing of his tape, but it was virtually a clone of his version. Don't know quite how De La Soul from New York came to hear a home made tape by some kid in East Anglia, but there you go. We begin this playlist with a conspiracy theory.
2) Delta 5 - "You"
I wish this band had made more records. Part of that new wave scene from leeds that included Gang Of Four and Mekons, they made great funky, angular music with potent lyrics.
3) Sly & The Family Stone - "Thank You Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin"
And talking of peerlessly funky... Just a point on the economics of rock music, as great as it it, when you have this many members of a band, it is impossible for them to make any money, apart from the writer of the songs who has music publishing points.
4) Stone Roses - "She Bangs The Drums"
The second best Stone Roses' song
5) Gang Of Four - "He'd Send In The Army"
I wish guitarist Andy Gill & singer Jon King weren't always falling out as they could have made loads more great music than they actually did. They made the album "Content" after a hiatus of some 20 years and then King promptly left the band again.
6) Ice Cube - "Now I Gotta Wetcha"
Most helpful of Mr Cube to explain at the start of the song that "wetcha" is not referring to the hosepipe start of a wet t-shirt competition.
7) Public Enemy - "Miuzi Weighs A Ton"
Did you what what they did there? Mi Uzi elided into Miuzi. As they say in the North of England.
8) MC 900Ft Jesus - "The Killer Inside Me"
A white rapper who largely went under the radar but produced two rather wonderful albums.
9) Pink Military - "Did You See Her?"
This song gets me every time. One album wonders.
10) NWA - "Express Y'self"
For all the confrontational angst of their first album, this little dance gem popped out as well. And great it is too. Not just because it rhymes "Moving like a tortoise, full of rigor mortis"
11) Gang of Four - "It's Her Factory"
perhaps not surprising that Gang Of Four whose songs were all about the politics of the personal appear twice in this chart. This was only ever a throwaway B-Side but packs an off key punch, but then Gang of Four never really did anything throwaway.
12) Norris Reid - "Protect Them"
Environmentalism in reggae before anyone had really coined the term let alone formed a viable political movement. Like so many religious theologies, the notion of the precious interconnectedness of all life as god's creations, somewhere gets lost along the lines of religious practise.
13) Cop Shoot Cop - "Heads I Win, Tails You Lose"
Celebrating bands with two bass guitars rather then the usual guitar and bass line up. My favourite type of music noise!
14) Arctic Monkeys - "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor"
Didn't they used to be a thing a few years ago?
15) Clipse - "I'm Not You"
Clipse's debut album is fantastic rap but then they seemed to suffer from the pressures of success and subsequent albums seemed to have them on the point of emotional breakdown as revealed by their lyrics. Definitely a rap group to track down, coming from neither the bloated hip hop traditions of New York or California
16) Boss Hog - "I Dig You"
Husband and wife duo in soppy mood, though being Boss Hog this is completely out to lunch.
17) The Tubes - "I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk"
Were they punk? Were they Meatloaf in a band format? Either way they did have a couple of top tunes.
18) White Stripes - "I'm Slowly Turning Into You"
I never really bothered with the back story, playing at brother and sister when actually they were married, but I did like the songs.
19) Funkadelic - "We Hurt Too"
I think Funkadelic were my favourite of all George Clinton's incarnations. The "America Eats its Young" is a fabulous album without a weak track on it.
20) Sonic Youth - "Protect Me You"
People bang on about the signature guitar sound of a Johnny Marr (Smiths) or Slash (Guns N Roses) but there's nothing quite as unique as Sonic Youth's guitar sounds with their odd tunings.
Food in songs, what could be more tasty a nugget than the 3-minute pop song to chew on? Sadly there doesn't seem to be any video of Cornershop's "Chicken In A Basket" as even they on their blog say they don't have the rights to the video, but we press on with other munchable classics. The Stranglers' "Peaches" doesn't count. Wrong sort of peaches...
1) "American Pie" - Don McLean
We'll start with the obvious one, the one that everyone could instantly come up with. Although the actual reference to the food item is pretty tenuous.
2) "Roast Fish And Cornbread" - Lee Scratch Perry
Sounds like it's been recorded in somebody's echoey bathroom, but that's perhaps it's genius.
3) "Cheeseburger" - Gang Of Four
I always thought this song was all over the place musically, not one of their best.
4) "Hot Burrito #1" - Flying Burrito Brothers
I'm not a fan of Country and Western, but let's face it, what other music genre is going to pen an ode to the mighty burrito? Certainly not Death metal that's for sure. And Wall of Voodoo wrote "Mexican Radio" but nothing to foodstuffs of the region...
5) Apples And Oranges" - Pink Floyd
Syd Barret Floyd with that delicious mix of pop sensibility with psychedelic off key distortion. Fruit loops.
6) "Eggs For Rib" - Cop Shoot Cop
And on the other end of the spectrum, post-punk/industrial bass heavy noise makers from New York. Don't be fooled by the quiet intro.
7) "Jumbalaya" - Carpenters
I dunno, something poignant about anorexic victim Karen Carpenter singing about a food dish.
8) "Fish Fry" - Big Black
Okay so the song doesn't really have much to do with the food, but then I don't eat fish fried or otherwise. You don't know where it's been. Well you do obviously, the sea, but I mean you don't know what's been in the sea.
9) "Toast" - Streetband Do Americans have these one-off novelty hits in their music charts? Now it's all ringtones I suppose, so you don't get any of this nonsense, just "Crazy Frog".
10) "Hot Dog" - Led Zeppelin Call it heavy rock, call it rock and roll, this song quite clearly shows them to be 12 Bar Blues and Boogie. From the bayous of West Bromwich. Fancy that.
11) "Sixteen Saltines" - Jack White Being British I didn't actually know what saltines were until I looked them up. What we call 'crackers' but that means something completely different in the U.S of A. This video is vaguely disturbing on a couple of levels.
12) "Jerk Ribs" - Kelis The bass is very catchy, more interesting than the song. Just my opinion like.
13) "Life Is A Minestrone" - 10 CC Ah the 70s... Now you appreciate why punk had to come along and shake things up a bit. Life in London in 1977 was not a bowl of minestrone I can tell you...
14) "Beef" - Gary Clail and The On-U Sound System Love this song although the remix isn't as sharp and tight a tune as the original album track, but you can't seem to track that original down any more.
15) "Pulling Mussels From A Shell" Ah Squeeze, great subversive pop songs that ascended the charts, but yet responsible for unleashing Jools Holland on the world. Wins some lose some I guess.
Those that know me as a writer say I don't write many stories about love. I'd disagree with this and indeed in my latest collection there are a couple of heart-rendering love stories, but yeah it's true, they don 't end well. Actually, there's a third story "Eyes In The Back of His Hands" that's an intense portrayal of love with a blind lover. You can read it here.
So I thought my next music themed chart should be love related. But I'm not really one for the classic pap love song, sorry I meant pop love song. But here's ten of my favourite love tinged songs.
Ramones - "Baby I Love You"
Two-minute thrash rockers go all slow strings and syrupy on this track and I Loooove it!
Keith Rowe - "Groovy Situation"
When Keith belts out "This is how I feel" towards the end, it sends shivers down my spine. He means it he really, really means it. He's in love, with all of his soul. Mesmerising despite a reasonably unpromising beginning to the song.
Undertones - "You Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It?)"
Hey I never said the love had to be requited in these songs did I? Love this song as I did of so many of the Undertones' output. Perfectly crafted 3 minute pop-punk, cheeky and belligerent at the same time, with catchy choruses, which when push comes to shove, no one really gets hurt in the end.
CSS - "Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death from Above"
Probably wins the award for best titled live song. Don't know if anyone else feels this, but it has the feel of a post-coital song to me, lying back on the bed, smoking a cigarette and letting your thoughts float free. Oh just me then...
Infadels - "Love Like Semtex"
The only song of theirs I really liked. It's not particularly coherent lyrics wise, but it manages to convince through the beat and the delivery.
New Order - "Love Vigilantes"
Joy Division wrote the searing "Love Will Tea Us Apart" with it's mea culpa and realistic sensibilities about the flaws and failings within a relationship. New Order pen this potty ditty about a soldier returning home from war to his wife who believes him dead. It lacks any gravitas or even much in the way of credibility, but it's bouncy and hummable and I like it in spite of myself.
The Rezillos - "I love My Baby Cos She Does Could Sculptures"
What better reason could there be? Never overlook the significant part Art Colleges played in the rise of UK punk in the middle of the 1970s. Perhaps that's why Paul Weller penned such an acerbic song called "Art School" to distance people from the notion that The Jam were associated with punk. Anyway, hilarious intro to this song about how the band hated each other.
The Pogues - "Kitty"
Shane Macgowan was a master of writing aching love songs full of loss and regret, often tied up to exile and leaving your country behind. Of course everyone knows "Fairytale Of New York", but for sheer weary emotion I don't think you can top this.
Boss Hog - "I Dig You"
Husband and wife team Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez pen a daft song pledging their troth towards one another. But I loved this band with their blend of swamp dirt blues and Spencer's later incarnation Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion that deconstructs and reconstructs the Blues with a particular 21st Century spin.
Gun Club - "Fire Of Love"
The primal sound of love, lust, concupiscence the whole shooting match. The fire of love, does exactly what it says on the tin.
Gang Of Four - "Love Like Anthrax"
Okay, so I just couldn't help myself and reverted to type. A song that deconstructs the notion of love as mythologised in 3 minute pop songs. Apart from what's going on musically, this is really interesting in the way the two vocal narratives cut across one another with no concern as to which one the listener gloms on to. A bit like a married couple having an argument, which kind of summed up the relationship of guitarist Andy Gill & lead singer Jon King who periodically broke up and came back together/. I think right now King has left the band again.
Even Wham had a song called "Young Guns" although that was used of people rather than weapons of death. from shotgun weddings to protest songs at war and nuclear arms, music has been full of references to weapons. Here's a sprinkling for your listening pleasure.
1) "Mack The Knife" - Lotte Lenya & Louis Armstrong
Brecht, Weill, Lenya & Armstrong, does it get any better than this? You really can see that Weill was influenced by Armstrong in this.
2) "Poison Arrow" - ABC
Don't think ABC have ever turned up in any chart of mine. The 1980s really was the death of music. While you lot were liberally applying blusher and hairspray, a few of us were turning our battered eardrums to New York City and the grimy industrial brutalism of bands like Swans and Sonic Youth. Time has not mellowed me as to which was the more worthwhile... Everything about this song grates me, the 'Eastenders' drum sound, the cheesey organ sound, the feeble slap bass...
3) "Burning Spear" - Sonic Youth
See a man playing his guitar with drumsticks, now that's what I'm talking about! Currently I'm trying to decide whether to buy Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon's biography "Girl In The Band" or not. She was a tad more than just the guitarist's girlfriend, she was his wife! But they recently got divorced and I think the book's going to be pretty ugly on that score...
4) "Swords Of A Thousand Men" - Tenpole Tudor
I never quite got Eddie Tenpole's schtick. I think I'm right in saying he was in the sex Pistol's movie "The Great Rock And Roll Swindle" and then seems to have had a chip on his shoulder that he never made it to the big time. Except for a brief stint with this knockabout campery.
5) "Eton Rifles" - The Jam
The Jam were really quite subversive. They had so many Top ten chart singles, including this, appeared on mainstream pop shows constantly and all the while not pulling any political punches in many of those chart hits.
6) "Bazooka Joe" - Big Black
So there were these three bands who resolutely refused to have a drummer, but worked with a drum machine and all the performers were out at the front of the stage. One was Carter The Unstoppable sex Machine with their cheeky South London puns. The next was Three Johns with their Yorkshire political fist pumping. And then there was Steve Albini's Big Black who just out-powered them and went for the noise and the dark side of US life. I liked all three in point of fact, but now in my dotage Big Black have way outlasted the other two in my affections, even though they were the only one of the three I never saw live.
7) "Armalite Rifle" - Gang of Four
A throw-away B-Side really, but there's something about its stripped down almost football chant simplicity that sets off the significance of what they're singing about.
8) "6" Gold Blade" - Birthday Party
Well Nick Cave is forever singing about knives and killing isn't he? Always seems to be women on the receiving end of his knives as well...
9) "Love Missile X-111" - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
The debut single of the first manufactured rock band and they disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Named after a real US military weapon, I however am grateful since I initially used it for a title of a stage play of mine. When I rewrote it as a novel I changed the title for another song, Cindy Lauper's "Time After Time". See, I have mellowed... But not in my opinion of this song which is cack.
10) "Careful With That Axe Eugene" - Pink Floyd
It's not like Roger Waters hadn't served you all good notice with this long before "The "Wall" and "Dark Side Of The Moon'. Madness is an ever-present theme in his work. Is that mad grin just a by-=product of his vocal or is it for real? You decide.
10) "Mi Uzi Weighs A Ton" - Public Enemy
Wait, we've got to number ten before mentioning a Rap band with their loves for all things semi-automatic and drive-bys and tings? This was the song that really introduced UK audiences to PE I think. Even though they quickly moved away from this kind of gangster posturing and left that to the West Coast rappers like Ice-T. the beat on this really does seem to weigh a ton.
11) "Tommy gun" - The Clash
We say that about Rap, but every other song by the Clash seemed to contain a weapon or two; "Guns Of Brixton", "Washington Bullets", "Drug Stabbing Time", "sten Guns In Knightsbride". But then they were fighting the revolution I suppose...
12) "Yankee Bayonet" - The Decembrists
The Decembrists have pretty much passed me by. Sound like second rate REM to my ears
13) "Ten percent Pistol" - Black keys
Earnest musos or smash up your guitars as you cavort around the stage lost in the trance of your own thrash trance. Know which I'd rather have...
For which I give you -
14) "Little Man With A Gun In his Hand" - Minutemen
If you think these guys were just a thrash punk band making a noise as in this terrible recording ion a boat, then check out the acoustic version's musical complexity in the video after
15) "My 9mm Goes Bang" - Boogie Down Productions
And we're back with rap's fetishisation of the gun
16) "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" - Breeders
And bringing some calm to proceedings, we all prefer this to the Beatles original right? What do you mean no!!!
Well if it's good enough for Shakey (William, not Stevens) then it must be a subject rich for the arts. here's a music chart of Dream themed songs (but not David Essex's "Silver Dream Racer")
1) Sonic Youth - "I Dreamed I Dream"
An early SY song this, before their layered sound had really started to cohere. But it's still brooding with menace and the husband and wife swapped vocals is really effective. Kim Gordon's book "Girl in A Band" has just come out. She was anything but that in Sonic Youth.
2) London Underground - "Dreams Are Better"
Spacy, dubby soundscape does conjure up a dreamy sensibility.
3) Mamas And Papas - "California Dreaming"
Infinitely prefer this version than the Beach Boys, even prepared to overlook the fashion faux pas.
4) The Fall - "Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul"
If you're going to include a Fall song in any music themed chart, chances are Mark E Smith's sensibilities are going to cut against the grain of the theme and sure enough, here the Hip Priest warbles his disapproval of the Wigan Casino's soul capital reputation.
5) Gang of Four - "We Live As We Dream Alone"
A quote from Joseph Conrad and I always want to put a comma after the 'Dream' and before the 'Alone'. Talking of fashion faux pas... Still one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands.
6) Fire Engines - "Big Gold Dream"
Here's a band that somehow haven't featured in a chart of mine before even though I really like them. The perspective is very odd here, the band look like tall thin giants compared to the dancers in the front.
7) Magik Markers - "Bad Dream"
I only discovered this band relatively recently and their album "Boss" has gone into my all-time top 20. Usually wig-out noise merchants, this shows an alarming degree of disturbia through a much lighter touch. Fabulous.
Pauline Murray sounding just like she did when fronting punk band Penetration, though with more poppy backing than the thrash 3 chords of punk.
9) New Order - "Dreams Never End'
Fascinating track that shows the partial emergence of the New Order sound from that of Joy Division, but still with its roots very much traceable. They all look so tentative here.
10) Suicide - "Dream Baby Dream"
If there was ever a soundtrack of nightmares, Alan Vega provided it.
11) Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This"
I wasn't really a fan of the 80s, most of my favourite bands expired in the early 80s. I always associate this song with the grim politics of the era. A kind of corporate sponsored vision of nightmarishness.
12) Supertramp - "Dreamer"
Before punk came along, I used to listen to stuff like this. Thank god for punk I say. These days this sounds like Leo Sayer to me. Crime of the century? That this type of music held sway for so long.
13) Television - The Dream's Dream"
This was probably around a similar time to the Supertramp and represented a precursor of punk and new wave that swept away the old rock dinosaurs. But these guys could still play their instruments, apart from Richard Hell obviously!
14) Nas - "Sweet Dreams"
I like Nas, but he really needs to get himself a decent artistic director to make his videos. they're all the same and universally awful.
15) Chemical Brothers - "Dream On"
They're called the Chemical Brothers for a reason. Spacemen 3 would have killed for this song.
16) Electric Prunes - "I had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)"
Dressed like choirboys yet their sound was a distortion, fuzzed up glorious romp.
17) Tricky - "Bad Dreams"
And we're back with the paranoia latent in dreams. or not so latent in this case. Tricky regarded all life as a bad dream.
18) Lil Kim - "Dreams"
Oh do get on with it! Once she's 43 seconds in it really locks in to a remorselessly mean vibe.
19) The Bug - "Thief Of Dreams"
Dubstep is supposedly an edgy dreamy urban soundscape and The Bug is all that and more. But the vocalist in this spins a terrifying narrative that is anything but dream like.
20) Minutemen - 'Dream Told By Moto"
Or the 4 minute warning till the bomb drops... no dream this for us in the 80s, we really had these thoughts and anxieties.
1) Pere Ubu - "30 Seconds Over Tokyo"
A song about the dropping of a nuclear bomb, even though neither of the two that were dropped were over Tokyo. Still, unnerving sounds for an uncomfortable track.
2) Mickey Dread - "World War Three"
I grew up in an era when we did talk about the possibility of a third world war with due seriousness and dread. But somehow, when transposed in a reggae idiom, it doesn't quite seem as apocalyptic.
3) DOA - "War In The East"
White man reggae, so yes the threat and menace are back in it. Still I like the almost jaunty rise in timbre of the line "War only brings destruction".
4) Dead Kennedys - "Chemical Warfare"
So you steal some chemical agent and who do you target with it? Only the Country Club Sunday golfers!
5) Minutemen - "Dream Told By Moto"
Yes we really did think about what would you do with the 4 minutes left of life before the bombs hit. And this seemed to be the unfailing response. Typical male perspective, 4 minutes being sufficient.
6) The Pogues - "The Battle Of Brisbane"
In which Shane Macgowan accompanies himself by beating a tin tray against his head.
7) The Clash - "Washington Bullets"
The Clash sing about Latin American politics, of the American government's interdiction against anything faintly Marxist on the continent and the murky world of drugs, guns and money deals.
8) Fund-a-mental - "Sbrebrenica Massacre"
From an album called "All is War", one of the angriest albums you will ever hear as they catalogue the West's campaigns against Muslim states. This is haunting.
9) Black Sabbath - "War Pigs"
Ozzy and Co po-faced for once rather than camping it up.
10) Flipper - "Sacrifice"
There is something primal and primeval about Flipper's basic sound and that seems to fit perfectly for this song.
11) Rage Against The Machine - "Killing In The Name Of"
I was never really into them, so this is about the only one of their songs I know and that really only from the crowdbombing campaign to get it to the Christmas Number One instead of some TV Talent show dreck.
12) Gang Of Four - "Armalite Rifle"
This was only ever a B-Side on a single, but demonstrates their political aesthetic which informed all their early songs.
13) Stiff Little Fingers - "Wasted Life"
The band from which I was the most spoiled for choice for songs about war, hardly surprising that they came from Belfast, but they managed throughout it all to remain pretty non-aligned, quite an achievement in that community torn by strife.
14) Ian Brown - "Illegal Attacks"
Ian Brown the spokesman for Britain's illegal invasion of Iraq with America, based on a fictitious report into Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons capability. It's a long way from Madchester's non-stop party vibe.
15) Discharge - "Visions of War"
Discharge, the band that would be invited to soundtrack the apocalypse.
American Pie, songs about women called Candy, bubblegum pop... food is meat for coverage in music. So feast your senses on this cornucopia of nourishment, or not as we tuck into a chart of ten songs about grub. Enjoy!
1) Lee Scratch Perry - "Roast Fish & Cornbread"
Traditional Caribbean repast, traditional (ie pre-commercial) reggae. If you listen to some of the songs of this era, you can hear the water background as befits an island culture. Moreish.
2) Gary Clail - "Beef"
A song lacerating the treatment and slaughter of cattle for our consumption of meat. People preferred Morrisey's reedy exhortation that "Meat is Murder". I know which one gets my vote. Juicy.
3) The Undertones - "Mars Bars"
Throwaway song on the B-Side of the "Jimmy Jimmy" 4-track 7" single, but it grew a life of its own. More boyish than laddish which encapsulates the band. Toothsome.
4) Pink Floyd - "Apples And Oranges"
One of Syd Barrett Floyd's last offerings, this is a curious mix of the Beatlesque and psychedelic. it almost seems that the vocals are trying to catch up with the instrumentation, or that there are too many words to deliver and fit into the rhythm. Very odd. Tart.
5) Gang Of Four - "Cheesburger"
I love Go4 but they really seemed to have lost it by the time of their fourth album "Hard" where this track came from. Maybe they'd just sung all their protest lyrics that they had and run out of ideas, while the punk-funk vibe jarred with the critical nature of their lyrics. Since their recent return however, they seem to have rediscovered their mojo and their first album in years isn't half bad. Gristle.
6) Cop Shoot Cop - "Eggs For Rib"
If you want a bit of beef in your music, or even a bit of full English behind it, takes a bunch of Americans to deliver this glorious greasy spoon fry up of a song. No idea what the lyrics are on about, but love it all the same. Calorific.
7) The Carpenters - "Jambalaya"
Carpenters do Cajun, who knew? Hey it's the Carpenters, so what could be bad right? Is it in bad taste to include anorexia sufferer Karen Carpenter in a food-themed music chart? Piquant.
8) Jack White - "Sixteen Saltines"
Do the English have saltines? I love my crackers, Ritz, Water Biscuits etc, but can't say I've ever knowingly bitten into a salteen. To me it sounds like a dried fish or something like anchovies. Still it's a good riff and a half decent song. Seasoned.
9) Squeeze - "Pulling Mussels From The Shell"
A classic. I myself don't trust seafood as to its healthiness given the pollutants pumped or jettisoned in the seas, so don't indulge. But then I guess this song warns against trusting too much as well so I seem to be in step with its sentiments. Squeeze were one of those bands who you were glad populated the charts with a level of edge and quality that kept the bland pap music in check, but you never actually went out and owned any of their records yourself... Brackish.
10) Portishead - "Biscuit"
Not sure what this has to do with biscuits, but oh my what a voice dripping emotion. Savory.
It's what all pop music is about isn't it? Boys meet girl... girl loses boy... boy moons after girl... they do the bump 'n grind and boom shallack la boom! So plenty to sink our teeth into here, although Right Said Fred's "I'm Too sexy" is disqualified because it's about looking sexy rather than doing the do!
1) Gun Club - "Sexbeat"/ "Fire of Love"
"Sexbeat" in its driving rhythm absolutely expresses the urgency of teenage fumbling, while "Fire Of Love" is the most primal swamp blues of hot lust you are liable to hear. Late lead singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce led a dissolute life but I always associate him with the excesses of drink and drugs rather than sex, despite his rough good looks. (In this concert footage he gives a typically chaotic performance). Meanwhile Patricia Morrison on bass remained the perennially cool Goth ice maiden. I encorage you to track down studio versions of both these songs for the full effect.
2) Au Pairs - "Come Again"
Au Pairs deliciously send up the etiquette of politically correct sex, with the supposed emphasis on simultaneous orgasm and forever asking your partner if 'you're doing it right'. Lacks the edge of some of their other songs like "Sex Without Stress" in which singer Lesley Wood's voice almost perennially seems like on the point of cracking with the emotion of it all.
3) Gang Of Four - "Love Like Anthrax"
Always ones to burst pop's fantasy bubble, Go4 tell it like it as with regards to love in what remains one of the most musically experimental songs to come out Britain. I want to write literary equivalents of what this song achieves in its structure.
4) The Stranglers - "School Mam"
This was probably one of the first overt songs about sex I was exposed to and um it probably scarred me for life! Don't think i had a teacher like this at my school.
5) The Tubes - "Don't Touch Me There"
Kings of camp deliver an priceless antidote to the Meatloaf world of "Bat Out Of Hell".
6) Sensational Alex Harvey Band - "Gang Bang"
I'm not a fan of twelve bar blues shuffle, it seems a bit flippant in this case to accompany the story of a gang bang, but I offer it as an example of its kind.
7) Tone Loc - "Wild Thing"
You can't do a chart about sex songs without including some hip hop or rap. I had to reject most of the contenders for fear of causing offence to 50% of the population, but at least Tone Loc takes the rise out of himself as much as anybody else in this song.
8) CSS - "Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above"
Great title, great song, great one-album band obssesed with all things sex.
9) The Vapors - "Turning Japanese"
Oh come on you didn't fall for the travelogue style video did you? Never trust a british band that spell American style without the 'u' after the 'o'. Turning Japanese referred to one's narrowing eyes at the point of climaxing at a self-administered hand-job. Sorry if I've now opened your eyes and spoilt the innocence of this song for you!
10) Dead Kennedys - "To Drunk to F-ck"
Okay so technically this isn't about love making at all, but hey we need a little reality and balance to pop's sickly sweet world right?
11) Marvin Gaye - "Sexual Healing"
In contrast to all those nasty cynical punks (Johnny Rotten described sex as 2 minutes of squelching noises remember), Marvin puts the 'S' back into 'sex'. Luscious...
12) Frankie Goes To Hollywood - "Relax"
The song that really stirred the pot for us all by getting banned for its explicitness (and gay sex at that) and still we all fell under its sway. A song that tore through the early days of the AIDS epidemic and our fears.
The Supremes, Super Furry Animals, ZZ Top, The Fab Four...
So it's a new year and there haven't been enough days yet for my usual pessimism to reassert itself over the fresh slate newness of the year. Everything's hunky dory super right? At least for another 5 minutes. So in honour of that, here's a music chart on all things exaggeratedly upbeat and optimistic.
1) Holy F*ck - Super Inuit
Even the band's name expresses a level of incredulity, but this jaunty little number fairly sweeps along. I wonder what the destination in mind was however...
2) The Fall - Fantastic Life
You just know acerbic curmudgeon Mark E Smith is laughing the other side of his face when he pens any song with "Fantastic" in the title. I once saw this live and the organ break just went on forever. It was erm fantastic...
3) Jimmy Cliff - Wonderful World, Beautiful People
Is this not the man who sung the gritty "The Harder They Come"? Whatever was he thinking? Maybe he was thinking of the royalties...
4) Mos Def - Life In Marvelous Times
Wonderful building tension in this as you think def's gonna hit you with the chorus, but just cranks the lyrical torque up some more. You can hear the disbelief in his voice when he does pronounce the title.
5) Gang of Four - Not Great Men
Post-punk feminism, as played by 4 geezers. While one welcomes the handclap on the rock record, the disturning sight of Jon King's Arsenal shirt counters any kudos going their way.
6) Public Enemy - Don't Believe The Hype
I won't if you wont... Have you noticed how this chart has veered into pessimism? From the band who's debut album claimed "Mi Uzi Weighs a Ton"
7) Jon Spencer Blues Experience - Blowing My Mind
From the man whose first band was called Pussy Galore... Everything about Swampblues is hyperbolic really. Nowt wrong with that mind.
8) The Specials - Too Much Too Young
Classic SKA, what a band. No hyperbole involved when describing them.
9) House Of Pain - Top O The Morning
Their follow up to "Jump Around". Not that good really. Plastic Paddies I'm afraid.
10) Beastie Boys - Finger Licking Good
Yes, probably that type of smutty innuendo rather than Kentucky Fried Chicken
11) Schooly D - Mr Big Dick
Um, er... Tongue firmly in his cheek... no not that cheek, get your mind out of the gutter
It's always the lead guitarists who get all the muso-glory. Drummer get the jokes made about them, singers do the interviews and bassists? Well bassists are like the invisible man of the band. Here's a list of 20 songs to partly redress the balance. They may not all be bass licks by musical virtuosos, but the song wouldn't be the same with a lesser bassline.
1) Buzzcocks - "Whatever Happened To?"
How's this for a bass intro? The instrument really came into its own with punk, since the limited musical abilities of the early punkers meant that the primitive sounds just merged into a noisy squall. But solo bass intros allowed some separation out at the beginning of the song and there were many punk bassists who suddenly stepped more into the limelight than in previous musical eras.
2) The Stranglers - "Nice'N'Sleazy"
This was the band who maybe made me really fall in love with the instrument. Jean-Jacques Burnel's bass was just so dirty sounding, as befit their lyrics. Yeah there were persistent rumours that he couldn't actually play and the keyboardist Dave Greenfield was actually playing the riffs, but Burnel was a classically trained musician so I don't buy it. The lowest of low-end bass!
3) Wire - "Like a Heartbeat"
Wire were always more arty purveyors of punk rock, musically stripped down. the bass pulse as a heartbeat, what could be simpler than that? Stunningly effective. Suddenly it was the upfront bass sound that people could dance to, just like in reggae.
4) Talking Heads - "Psychokiller"
Meanwhile, over in New York where New Wave preceded punk unlike in Britain, there were some accomplished musicians showing a punk attitude but with musical virtuosity to boot. If I wanted to look like JJ Burnel, I wanted Tina Weymouth to be my girlfriend. Quite simply a psychokiller of a bass intro.
5) Pere Ubu - "Heart Of Darkness"
And just to emphasise New York's primacy of the accomplished New Wave sond, comes Pere Ubu and another paranoia-suffused bass intro. Both these tracks have the bass as the more primary instrument and don't they sound all the better for it? New York in the early 80s must have been one messed up city.
6) Public Image Ltd - "Poptones"
The brief flare that was punk rock was quickly replaced by New Wave in Britain with similar values to those in the US. Arch musical experimentalists PIL had the musical genius that is Jah Wobble on bass, heavily influenced as his name suggests by bass-heavy dub reggae. A bass sound that is both dense and fragile at the same time. Outstanding.
7) The Ruts - "Love In Vein"
Part of punk and New Wave was a formal link up and experimentation with reggae and reggae musicians. Ruts were out and out punk but had very close local ties to roots reggae band Misty and the two shared many bills on the Rock Against Racism tour. Here the crossover is clear in one of the most achingly sad and beautiful songs by a punk band.
8) The Jam - "Funeral Pyre"
By now punk had gone all mainstream and bands like the Jam were having regular singles in the Top 10 of the charts. This song is unusually heavy and free-form for what was a tight threesome and everyone normally remembers the drum solo closing out the song, but actually bassist Bruce Foxton was also allowed off his tight leash to twiddle and thump away. Powerpop.
9) The Cure - "A Forest"
The Cure were never punk. A bit low-fi pop on their debut album and soon to move into stadium Goth. But in between was their second melancholy album and this track showing a bass also driving a song, but without the bluster and pose of songs with harder edge. The sound of a higher end bass. Who'd be a bassists though? The Cure's Laurence Tolhurst went to Court to sue over lack of royalties saying he contributed ineffably to the Cure sound. He lost.
10) Dead Kennedys - "We Got a Bigger Problem Now"
Hopping back over the pond and New Wave had taken the reverse journey and morphed into punk, thrash and hardcore. Progenitors of that were San Fransisco's Dead Kennedys with Klaus Flouride on bass. Here he has a little lounge music lick to satirise the right wing's music of choice. This song was a reworking of their earlier hit "California Uber Alles" written about the right-wing Governor Jerry Brown. But with californian Ronald reagan ascending to the Whitehouse, the US did as they say, have a bigger problem than that now... The West coast can do its own rather nice line in paranoia too.
11) Minutemen - "Anchor"
But US punk wasn't all thrash. The Minutemen were a trio whose musical abilities allowed them to include folk and jazz elements to their tightly blended mix. Guitar and bass alternated duties as leading songs and the band introduced Mike Watt, bass guitarist supreme upon the world.
12) World Domination Enterprises - "Asbestos Lead Asbestos"
If lead guitars can carry you along highways or out into space, the bass nearly always roots you back into the urban city. Here World Dom with their dub reggae penchant utterly nail the grime of their West London roots. Guitars are wielded like axes or played over the heart and chest, or even teasing over their sex, but bass guitars are always low-slung, closer to the ground. And of course they have a longer fretboard, to keep other people further at arms length...
13) Gang Of Four - "To Hell With Poverty"
The funk is introduced to New Wave. George Clinton and other funk bands were perhaps the only other precursors of punk who might bring the bass into the foreground. Since Gang Of Four's guitar sound was so choppy and intermittent, they needed a bass sound to carry the weight of some songs and fill in the gaps.
14) Beastie Boys - "Gratitude"
Hip hop could sample any sound it wanted. Yet when the Beastie Boys went back to their live instruments and punky roots, they brought delicious distortion to their bass sound. Ramp it up! RIP Adam MCA Yauch.
15) Birthday Party - "Mutiny In Heaven"
Punk, New Wave, Goth, what did any of it mean anymore by the mid-80s? There was a flowering of indie bands each pursuing their own underground tracks. The Birthday Party from Australia were one such blossoming that couldn't really be pigeonholed. But bassist Tracy Pew with his cowboy hat and biker fashion, sadly now dead from his grand mal seizures, was always driving the band forward with their off beat drum section, sometimes one drummer, sometimes two which he had to compete with as well as compliment. A bass rumble truly to soundtrack the rhythms of Hell!
16) Gun Club - "Sexbeat"
Psychobilly (UK) or swamp blues (US) was creative another offshoot and here the bass truly lends a quality of swampy sludge even as it drives the blues throb along in its train-driving manner.
17) Jesus And Mary Chain - "Sidewalking"
Meanwhile from Scotland, a band who wanted to be the surfer punks, the Beach Boys with a lot of reverb on top. I kind of liked their schtick, but the bass was always prominent among the feedback squall of the lead. It had to be, to keep it all together.
18) Cop Shoot Cop - "Shine On Elisabeth"
Two basses no guitars, this is a no brainer. 1 hi-end bass, one low-end bass, a heavnely heavy duty throbbing racket. This is my bass nirvana I think (the Buddhist ideal highest state of non-being, not Kurt Cobain's outfit).
19) Thee Johns - "White Boy Engineer"
There was a fashion for rock bands having drum machines instead of live drummers which definitely changed the vibe. Drum machines always sounded a bit tinny and brittle, so the bassist had to inject the weight into the musical grooves to compensate.
20) White Denim - "Let's Talk About It"
And so to the present day. I don't much about this band but we seem to be still where we were with permission for the bass sometimes to grab the glory in a song. Even with a geeky looking guy on bass like this one! Thanks for listening
As well as contributing two short stories to the anthology, I wrote the introduction to Pop Fiction - Stories Inspired By Songs In it I linked musicians who had been inspired by books and certain novelists and poets who set their words to music.
I wanted to extend this and give you a top ten of songs which either quote famous lines from fiction or the titles of books. many of them come from the post-punk new wave era, both from Britain and America.
1) "Killing An Arab" - The Cure
Robert Smith allegedly penned the song while studying the book for his French O-Level. I owe a similar debt to Albert Camus as "L'Etranger" and "La Peste" delivered me into reading when I was a late starter. Dunno what Meursault would have made of Smith's make up and goth clobber mind. Actually, he probably wouldn't care would he?
2) "Heart Of Darkness" - Pere Ubu
The band took their name from Alfred Jarry's great precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd in his three Ubu plays. The song shares the title of Joseph Conrad's great work and which has inspired so much art including "Apocalypse Now" and being name checked by TS Eliot in the epigraph to "The Hollow Men". This song oozes and bleeds with paranoia and tension which is so apt.
3) "Venus In Furs" - Velvet Underground
Hardly surprising that Lou Reed might be attracted to a work written by the man who gave his name to the word 'masochism' - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. The first video is so chaotic you can't hear the lyrics, but gives a sense of the New York Factory scene. The second video gives the song more of an airing.
4) "Bug Powder Dust" - Bomb The Bass
Tim Simenon's homage to William Burroughs and "Naked Lunch" sampling from the 'unfilmmable' film of the same name. The song is also a cut-up in its own way as it references Burroughs work while also holding an imaginary conversation/interview with him.
5) "We Live As We Dream Alone" - Gang of Four
Back to Conrad's "Heart Of Darkness" and a quote directly from it that sums up the isolation and thwarted dreams of the novel's main protagonists.
6) "Song From Under The Floorboards" - Magazine
Howard Devoto lead singer of Magazine may claim the title of most literary song lyricist. This song references Dostoevsky's "Notes From The Underground" in its stunning opening lines. In another song he namechecks Raskolnikov from "Crime And Punishment".
7) "Jack and Neal/ California Here I Come" - Tom Waits
His tribute to Kerouac's "On The Road". A book that did little for me, but then I can't drive, have no particular yen to cross my tiny island of Britain let alone the continent of America. I'll settle more for Camus' alienation, even if we don't get the sun on our heads.
8) "The Stranger" - Tuxedomoon
Another adolescent namecheck for Camus' classic, bearing out my theory that in the UK, any teenage boy who dares pick up a book to help articulate his feelings, is likely to come by one or all of "L'Etranger", "The Magus" and "Catcher In The Rye". Two of these 3 are very fine books.
9) "Death And Night And Blood (Yukio)" - The Stranglers
The Stranglers overtly acknowledge Yukio Mishima's inspiration by including him in the title. "Death and night and blood" is a quote from the semi-autobiographical "Confessions of a Mask", describing his "heart's leaning toward".
10) "Xanadu" - Rush
There's a bit of the Spinal Tap portentousness about this, but once they lyrics kick in they keep pretty close to Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" which of course itself rather infamously was penned while under the influence of narcotics, how very rock and roll - and of course that he was disturbed by a visitor and forgot the last lines as he had originally envisioned them and had to settle for a finale while no longer under the inspiration of the opiate muse.
11) Bonus Track "Lorca's Novena" - The Pogues
Not actually referencing a work, but the fate of Spanish poet Lorca who was killed by Franco's Fascists. This song underlines Shane Macgowan's own claims to be a poet of stature.
